The Rogue or the Lay of Merellde and Typho
by Leo Charles M
Summary: An explorer and scientist has unlocked the secrets to the Great Holocron in an effort to discredit the Jedi Prophecy of the Chosen One. "The Rogue" is a story set on ancient Jedha, originally told by Yoda, about love and the dangers of pride and attachment in the hands of Force-users. Learn about Kyber, ancient Jedi politics and the rise of the first Rogue Jedi! WiP, appreciate R&R
1. Part 1

"The Rogue"

Or the Lay of Merellde and Typho  
As told by Jedi Master Yoda

The next tale along the path to discovering the origins of the Chosen One is the first that I uncovered in my experiments with the mysterious Jedi Holocrons. It's worth noting that it was not the _first_ story I ever heard from the _Great Holocron_ , but it was the first complete tale in a language I could decipher with characters and locales that I could understand, within the vacuum of thousands of years of lost memory, of course.

It is the tale of a young Jedi whose propensity for the Force was only dwarfed by her propensity to love another young Jedi from the wrong family. Set on the system of Jedha, thousands of years before the Empire's testing turned the desert planet into a collapsed molten rock, the _Lay of Merellde and Typho_ is a cautionary tale meant to deter the Jedi from emotional attachment.

Buried in the confusing language used by the storyteller and the layers and layers of problematic and, for lack of a better word, propagandist, nature of the legend, is a prophecy of "The Immaculate One": a being of perfect balance and a conduit for the Force to fill the Galaxy with light. The heart of this epic poem tells a story strikingly similar to the Prophecy of the Chosen One, and surely the ramifications of this incident on Jedha would be felt throughout the Galaxy for eternity.

This discovery hit me like a lightning bolt and I recommitted my studies to uncovering the connecting thread between the prophecies. I was convinced that if the story of the Immaculate One was the basis for the Prophecy of the Chosen One, it could disprove thousands of years of religious lore, long assumed to be forgone truths. But as with all things in Science, I have found, seeking to uncover truth in one thing can very quickly uncover the mistruths of many, many things.

I resolved to transcribe the tale and remove as many of the inconsistencies and indoctrinating aspects in favor of brevity. It could be said that this legend was the most clarifying discovery of my scientific career, which even as I'm saying it now sounds like religious nonsense.

The storyteller was a being of unknown race and origin. It is one of the great disappointments of my career that I know so little about this being. I know that he was a Jedi Master, that he spent centuries training the Jedi and molding their faith, that he spent some time travelling and investigating stories of the Force (just like myself in that regard) and that is about all that I can say with certainty. His name was Yoda, or at least that is what he called himself, for I do not know enough about his species or their society to know whether "Yoda" is a name or title or term of endearment or nickname…

What I do feel confident assuming about Master Yoda is that he did not like to use the term "Sith", preferring rather to use the moniker "Fallen" or "Dark Jedi" instead. This might be a meaningless distinction based on the time period in question or perhaps it means something about his particular brand of faith; perhaps he maintained hope or identified with even his greatest enemies. He also has a very clear point of view on love: it is to be avoided at all costs by the Jedi.

The Lay of Merellde and Typho is presented as an epic poem that seems to lend itself to Master Yoda's naturally artistic and flowery speech patterns. I am not a poet nor do I know any, so this is not anything more than a transcribed version of the prose that Yoda compiled in the endless archives of the holocron.

I call it: "The Rogue".


	2. Part 2

"The Rogue" part 2

or The Lay of Merellde and Typho

To properly tell the story of Jedha one must first speak of the system Ilum and the treasures is held. Ilum was the first planet colonized by the Jedi, before even Jedha; the ice and crystal planetoid in the near-reaches of the Unknown Regions of the Galaxy was the major exporter of the uber-rare "kaiburr" crystals (later Kyber) that the Jedi faith hoarded to near-infamy. Beneath the many tectonic layers of ice and non-carbon _Ranite_ and _Kyberite_ formations, the early Jedi explorers found the Force-rich gems and quickly monopolized their use and trade. It was not until the Empire harvested the planet's rich core to power the DS-1 and Mark-II's weapons systems that it became the collapsed, molten-scarred planet it remains to this day.

Kyber was elemental and magical to any who interacted with it. By all accounts it glowed and sang and had many other properties that seem to belong in a children's bed-time story, but it was not entirely fiction. Countless tribes all over the Galaxy worshipped the magical crystals for their power-focusing abilities and connection to the spiritual realm. But the Jedi spent tireless efforts to collect and experiment with all the Kyber they could find.

The Ilum system was one stop away from Jedha on a well-guarded hyperspace lane and historically served as a training ground for the Jedi and housed some of the most intricately spectacular temples in the known Galaxy, but its inhospitable ecosystem was detrimental to any proper lapidary pursuits. Ilum was the first system colonized with the express purpose of asserting Jedi control over the Kyber; Jedha was the second.

Unlike the ice planetoid of Ilum, Jedha was a hard dessert, with burning hot days and bone-chilling nights. Before the Empire collapsed much of the moon upon itself with weapons testing, the desserts and continent-sized mesas were home to some of the most influential spiritual craftsmen in the Galaxy. The early Jedi families, dating back to over 9000 years BBY, founded the many temples and cities all with a singular purpose: to sift, sort, hone and craft the magical crystals of their faith.

So it is on Jedha that the noble house of Piagent became a great and influential family within the early Jedi Order. This was a very different time for the Jedi, you see, they were encouraged to love and procreate and fill the Galaxy with more of their "light". It was in these times, around 6100 BBY, that Master Capul Piagent and his wife became partners in their gemcraft and in life. Together the couple established a thriving conclave of Jedi crafters, artisans and prophets that turned their precious kaiburr into the finest crystals in the Order.

Piagent and his conclave spawned many competitors through the years, but none could compare to the finery of their Kyber; their facets, their size and breath and colors and shapes… Though many came and went it was not until Monto Pall and his four exceptional children took up residence on an adjacent mesa, that Piagent and his conclave were pushed to their limits. Monto had seemingly endless resources and insight into the very heart of the Jedha lapidary trade, insights it should have taken generations to cultivate and his shipping connections exceeded that of even the venerable house Piagent, after decades of profitable success.

Tensions mounted as a sort of Cold War broke out between the two families. Lines were drawn and sides were chosen; from skiff captains to freighters and haulers, even the Disciples who served the Keepers of the Whills — if Jedi legend is to be believed — were forced to pick sides in the conflict. And though the finest Kyber crystals came from Piagent, the efficiency and security of dealing with Monto and his family was second to none and the Order took notice.

As Piagent saw his noble conclave slipping in the graces of the Jedi Order, a momentous occurrence shattered and instantaneously reformed his world a new: his wife died giving birth to his daughter, Merellde. He was broken inside but happier than he'd ever been, it was a duality that was impossible to reconcile without facing an abyss of self-pity. He pushed aside his pain and guilt that such devastating loss must bring and devoted himself wholly to his Merellde.

Piagent was inspired and so too was his conclave. The crystals were more vibrant and glowed with a radiance that had never graced the Galaxy before. Piagent watched his daughter grow and around her he placed every protective vanguard he could think of. He surrounded her with like-aged warrior Disciples who could join her at lessons and in social settings. His conclave constructed worming mountain caves that stretched for miles in every direction including straight down through the crust of Jedha herself. No male served her, no male spied her, or spoke to her, or had any chance to woo her. It was the perfect plan, until, of course, it wasn't.


	3. Part 3

"The Rogue" part 3

Or The Lay of Merellde and Typho

There was an altercation: tonnes of raw kaiburr destroyed in an instant and a freighter crashing in flames, Monto Pall would not be satisfied till he saw Master Piagent face-to-face. Piagent would not risk losing face by admitting fault for such a blunder, nor would he acknowledge it as an act of aggression, but in his stubbornness a very special happenstance occurred. For the patriarch of House Pall did not come to the mighty palace of House Piagent alone.

With him came his youngest son, Typho, a strapping and impressive young man that would have made for a good heir, were he not fourth born. Typho found himself somewhere he was not allowed. He and Merellde shared a knowing moment of intimate _oneness_ and even though it was only a passing glance, through the magical lens of love they saw an eternity of passion in their mirrored gaze. Was it the Force that bound these too young souls? Or was it something else, something even older and more powerful?

A fire was lit between them that would never be quenched. Typho and Merellde returned to their families and their lives but found the light had gone out in their mundane worlds, all was made dim in comparison to the brilliance they'd seen in eachother. Young love blinds and Piagent knew it as much as Yoda preaches it throughout the epic.

And so the lifelong safeguards that Piagent had in place to keep Merellde from harm, were set to keep her imprisoned, instead. Typho was rebuffed by his family and shamed for his passions, which in turn led to brooding. Dark things came from their separation and anxiety, but both families were thriving through the inter-family conflict and the Kyber was flowing like a river.

Jedha blossomed into a cultural and religious center and hyperspace pilgrims were proud to spend time amongst the hallowed conclaves, especially those of Piagent and Pall. But a storm was brewing and slowly enveloping Jedha as well as the entire Order, whether they knew it or not. Rumors of dark experiments and something called Alchemy (but not the scientific definition of the word) terrified or revolted many within the Order, none so much as Piagent and sides were being taken, if only in hearts and minds, at first. At the eye of that storm of emotion was Monto and his powerful family.

During this time, it is not clear when precisely, it appears that Typho made a startling discovery while spelunking within the depths of heartbreak. He found that by sharing his raw pain and anguish with the Kyber, he could entrap that malicious feeling within its facets, forever tarnishing and twisting the color. A pale blue Kyber turned rose and held new facet lines that traced like permanent lightning strikes in the gem. He hid the discovery from his kin and even his father Monto went unawares for a time, as Typho, renewed in heart and spirit by his Kyber revelation, decided he would not let anything come between him and Merellde.

An opportunity presented itself to Piagent that was too good to pass up. A skiff captain was going to be running a load to the Pall's conclave the next cycle and quoted Monto a shipping time that was twice what it would actually take to run! It was the perfect scam — the captain could run the raw materials to Piagent, swap it for some fresh (and perfectly worthless) Ranite, the kaiburr byproduct would need to be convincing enough to unload at least, then collect his fee before spacing Jedha for good. Piagent accepted the captain's terms without hesitating and relished the possibility of hastening Monto's downfall.

The plan went off without a hitch, but of course the true plan was hidden beneath the obvious facade. Typho stowed away on the skiff and rushed off to rescue his lady-love during the nefarious transfer in the Piagent hangar. The two lovers kissed and held eachother and promised eachother things that Yoda was unwilling to speak about for: "Indecent, it would be."

The lovers stowed aboard the newly loaded skiff and when it took off for the Pall outpost, they thought their lives together had just begun. But the skiff arrived and Pall and Piagent were waiting for their children, together. The young lovers were not nearly as clever as they thought they were and to boot, they'd embarrassed their fathers in front of the nobility of Jedha and even the Jedi Order itself.

Politics corroded away entirely and what was left was worse than ever before. Piagent called Pall an agent of the great Darkness and called for aid from the Order. Monto slew every one of Piagent's faithful before ejecting him and his treacherous daughter from his halls. The Cold War had grown too hot for even the dessert heat of Jedha. Pall called together his faithful and those interested in what he called the greater mysteries of the Force. And the Disciples were forced to chose sides while the Keepers went into exile.

Jedha was unbalanced and on the brink of war because of love and the Force.

What happened next has unclear timing but some things can be inferred for the sake of a fluid story. Yoda's epic has some artistic flourishes that make the timing nearly impossible, but this is the closest sense I could make of it. Somehow the Force enabled Merellde and Typho a chance to escape their families one last time. They met in no-man's-land and lay together, knowing eachother carnally and warming eachother under the pale night sky.

They resolved to escape Jedha, to leave their families and the Order behind and make their own destiny together in the wide Galaxy. To bind his promise Typho gave Merellde a very special Kyber, the first of its kind, it was bright red and rippled like a fiery hurricane raging within the thousands and thousands of facets. It was an effect from a dark mystery of the Force and as horrible as something like "bleeding" a Kyber was, Merellde couldn't help but find herself staring longingly into the heart of the firestorm.

In the morning the young lovers were caught again, of course, but this time it was no mere embarrassment: a war began.


	4. Chapter 4

A battle raged right there on the plains of Jedha between loyalists to houses Piagent and Pall. Jedi against Jedi, Disciple against Disciple, magnificent sabers of all colors, shapes and sizes sliced through air and earth within a few terrible weeks of close-quarters combat. Dozens died in the first days of the war, by the end of the long conflict, thousands would meet their end at the hands of their own brethren. It was not until many years later that this battle would be known as the inception of the "Hundred Years Darkness."

When the storm of zealous combat settled on Jedha two of Typho Pall's siblings were dead, as was his father Monto, impaled upon his own brilliant yellow saber staff, and Master Piagent, Merellde's father was mortally wounded as well.

Piagent, knowing his life was slipping away from him, begged his beloved daughter Merellde to return with him to the safety of his home. But she could not be parted from Typho's side. The loving couple had fought without rest to defend eachother from the zealous legions warring around them. Blooded and war-weary, there was nothing that would change her mind but her father had to try...

In his death throes Piagent divulged the story that he had told every servant he'd ever employed to protect his darling child. He said that she was the fulfillment of a legend passed down from the Prime himself; a legend that told of an immaculate being of pure-Force-sensitivity, born of balance, who would balance the Force and fill the Galaxy with light. He explained that she, Merellde herself, was indeed born of perfect balance for she found life when her mother lost hers and in the trade the Force deemed her this immaculate one.

One day, Piagent believed, Merellde would be the perfect conduit to the Force and he only had to protect her till the day she would fill the Galaxy with radiating power.

But his pleas choked in his mouth when he saw the fiery red crystal draped around her neck. Such unnatural and vile magic shattered what remained of Piagent's already broken heart. In his resignation he cried out a horrible lament born of a lifetime of pain and sacrifice to his family. Typho arrived thereafter and finished off the invalid Jedi patron, only thinking of revenge and hatred, never of the heartbreak it would cause his love.

He plunged one of his two cerulean sabers deep into Piagent's shattered heart and instantly regretted his actions. He felt her anguish before he even heard her cry out in soul-shattering pain. Merellde found herself passionately enraged and unable to balance her love for Typho with her sorrow and loss. As Typho pulled his blue saber from the broken heart of the pitiable Master Piagent, Merellde ripped Typho's second lightsaber from his hand and a righteous duel ensued.

Hearts and sabers clashed for days on end. Battles flared up and subsided around them like squalls following the shadow of massive hurricane. At the Force-storm's heart the two young Jedi battled, equals in every way: unwilling to win and unable to lose. Blow after blow landed between them and the brother-blades that Typho had crafted from the heart of the same Kyber, began to bleed under the immensity of the emotional duel. Slowly but undeniably the two sabers turned from blue to a terrible, regal purple.

And in the fourth day of this marathon duel a communion of spirits uncovered an incredible secret that cost Typho his life and Merellde her soul.

The young Jedi lovers were too powerful and capable to simply fight with swords and acrobatics; Typho and Merellde fought eachother spiritually, battling wills as they pushed and pulled eachother across the cosmos and the face of Jedha. It was in this battle of spirits that a third will made itself known to them both. The third was dramatically smaller in physical presence but struck through the couple's conflict with the force of a neutron bomb.

She was pregnant, Merellde had a baby, Typho's baby, growing in her belly and he didn't want his parents to fight anymore!

It was impossible, only a few weeks since his conception, but already powerful enough to reach them both from her womb. Typho froze and did something very odd then; he released all of his hatred and anger and simply smiled. Without warning he deactivated his own lightsaber and stared into Merellde's eyes one last time. In that instant of confusing surrender Merellde stabbed her purple blade through his heart. She cried out that he should have blocked her, that it would have been simple, but he was already gone-dead the moment the fiery purple blade struck.

She relinquished her lover's weapon and held him and welcomed the same despair into her heart that she'd come to revile in her own father's. An internal conflict threatened to overcome the lovely Merellde as she held her love in her arms for the last time. She battled the will to die, to join her lover in the afterlife and be one with him in the Force, to avoid a life devoid of love and hope like her father had chosen: but her son would not have it. He reminded her of a life of new purpose, her new duty to both him and Typho's legacy. He could be their son, the last memory of the brilliant and lovely Typho of house Pall, and through his son he could endure.

She stayed there with the bodies of the two men that loved her most for a long time, but at some point she made to leave that place.

As she turned to leave she reached out with the Force to pull her lover's lightsaber back to her. It flew to her like a hawk to its master, but when it was close enough for her to reach out and grasp it, a sudden purple beam of fiery death shocked her with fire and icy emptiness. Typho's saber hilt froze just beyond her reach and in a blinding instant pierced her heart, burning through her for an eternity if it took more than a second. And as life escaped her, the regal purple fire of Typho's old saber burned into a molten, bloody crimson.

She fell, never to rise again and the red saber flew past her and landed in the palm of Typho's last living brother, the eldest and heir to house Pall: Ajunta.

Ajunta Pall went rogue and took many faithful and brilliant Jedi with him in his journey toward darkness. He and his brethren fought the Jedi for a century on many more worlds than just Jedha while they expanded their knowledge of the Dark Arts. Though the official records would not be kind to Ajunta Pall's infamous legacy, the histories would pay no mention to the young lovers who discovered the way to bleed Kyber, or the Jedi masters that allowed profits and prophecies to outweigh their domestic responsibilities.

In fact, the histories of the Galaxy do not record any of this conflict beyond the basic acknowledgement of its existence in that they acknowledge that the Hundred Years Darkness had a beginning. Nevertheless, if true, this tale is quite damning for the Jedi and their Prophecy of the Chosen One. Firstly because this tale could in fact be the precursor to the Prophecy, which if nothing else, usurps the authenticity of the prophecy's origin. Secondly, it shows that even the Jedi are capable of zealous rage and weaponizing their faith. And thirdly and perhaps most damning, it pits the Force against love itself, which it is fair to conclude is universally accepted as a friend to light and life, a contest that has no good endings for Force apologists.

In his travels, Yoda found the epic poem preserved in a pale red Kyber that rippled like a fiery hurricane raging within a thousand-thousand facets. Yoda collected the very unique Kyber in his travels and described it as having more facets than any Kyber he'd ever known and an unmistakable sadness about its spirit. The Order found it to be more dangerous than instructive, warning that it would do greater harm than good, even as a cautionary tale, so it is fair to say The Lay faded from the Jedi Order's consciousness.

The Jedi allowed it to happen and the Dark Jedi were more than happy to allow their inception to fade into legend as the Order and the Galaxy at-large shifted away from Jedha. Her hyperspace routes died and industry stalled and the Force moved on in its attentions.

As for Yoda, a seven thousand year-old bleeding Kyber was a source of pain that the old Jedi Master determined the Galaxy would be better off without. So he took it to a swamp planet in the Outer Rim to destroy it and free the memories of the pain their young love had caused.


End file.
